


Old Enough to Know (But Too Young to Care)

by mrsvc



Category: Drake & Josh
Genre: Alternate Universe, Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2012-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-18 19:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsvc/pseuds/mrsvc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU of 305 "The Affair." Suddenly, after three years of being brothers, they weren’t anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Enough to Know (But Too Young to Care)

**Author's Note:**

> I blame everyone in my entire life for this fic, starting with Katelynn, meeting in the middle with Jessi and Casey, and ending with Sin. I also blame Netflix.

Suddenly, after three years of being brothers, they weren’t anymore. 

They had been stepbrothers, and now that the ink has dried on the divorce papers and Walter's new girlfriend is begging him to move to L.A. with her and take the position as weatherman at the local news station, they were just two kids who were maybe friends. 

Josh misses having a brother - you could crawl into your brother's bed, jump on the mattress until he wakes up, and collapse on top of him in the middle of an emotional breakdown about discovering your father’s infidelity. 

You can't do that when you're living in separate houses, like has-been best friends.

They pine. Well, Josh pines, and Drake writes sad songs that he doesn't understand where they come from.

Walter apologizes, constantly, to everyone, and not a single one of them give a flying fuck.

Josh doesn't want to hear it, but at the same time, he feels guilty for not listening, for wanting to scream, "that's great, Dad. I'm so glad you're happy. Maybe you should have thought about my happiness too." He knows those words are just as selfish as what Walter did.

Megan retreats her room and slams the door whenever their mom looks at the caller ID and sees the Nichols' house number.

And Drake, well. He says the snide things Josh dreams about saying, and he slams a few doors himself. He cranks his amp to 11 and almost shatters the windows in his room.

His room.

That sticks the hardest in his throat, because Josh is living in a one bedroom apartment across town, sleeping on a couch in front of the cold glare of the tv instead of five feet away.

He still sometimes wakes up and groans, "Get up, Josh" throwing something in the general vicinity of Josh's bed, only to remember it's empty now.

The worst part is that they don't even go to the same school anymore, because Josh is redistricted in his new apartment, and their high school doesn't have open enrollment.

Three years ago, when he was fourteen and still mad at his dad for being a douchebag, and still mad at Walter for wanting to be his new dad, he wouldn't have minded not knowing Josh at all.  
He was happy, then, that his only memory of Josh Nichols was of a fat dweeb with olives in his nose from a botched magic trick.

But now he's seventeen, and he knows way more than three chords on the guitar, and he's got a whole routine that's been messed up without Josh there to make it run smoothly for him.  
In the mess of moving out and shifting around the fact that their parents aren't speaking except through lawyers or cell phones, they don't see each other for a whole week. For them, that's a fucking record.

Drake finally drags the car keys out of his mom's hands and convinces himself they both won't break down in tears as soon as he closes the door behind him and drives to the Premiere.

Josh is behind the candy counter, as usual, and Drake has to hold himself back from jumping the glass to wrap his arms around Josh. It's not an urge he's never felt before, but it's one he's never had to fight so strongly. Josh seems dejected, and he's absently rubbing at the same spot on the counter like he's not even watching what he's doing.

"One Megathon bar, please," he says instead and Josh looks up like a light finally came on in a dark room.

"Drake," he breathes, and Drake can see what a week apart's already done to him. Josh looks bad - pale and withdrawn - and Drake can see that his brother is categorizing the same little changes on Drake's face.

"Drake, I'm sorry, I'm sorry-" and Drake gets suddenly, irrationally angry.

"You've got nothing to apologize for, jesus. Josh."

Josh has always felt the need to apologize for things he couldn't help - dating Mindy, for his dad's actions, for not being there for Drake even when Drake hasn't been there for him.

"I know, I'm-" Josh cuts the apology off and rubs a hand over his face.

Drake can see the five o'clock shadow, if he can call it that, from where Josh has stopped caring about anything other than just making it through another day. There are rings around his eyes and his shoulders are slumped like he's exhausted. Josh looks how Drake feels, except Drake hides it all under his rock-star persona like a pro and Josh had never found a way to not wear his heart on his sleeve. Drake thinks that should be something they would teach in Home Ec, not that he'd ever be caught dead in that class.

"Drake-" He can tell that Josh has no idea how to start this conversation that doesn't begin with another apology, so Drake starts it for him.

"How's the apartment?"

"Horrible," he intones in his traditional, Josh-ish way - head snapping around for emphasis and his voice lowered. "Dad keeps _looking_ at me like I'm a caged animal ready to pounce. Do I look like I have any pouncing abilities? And his girlfriend - " Josh spits the word. "Patricia." 

Drake frowns too, because he hates her too. He hates her in an abstract way, because he's never met her and he has no reason to hate her, not really. He hates the idea of her, and what she represents. Josh hates her with a fire, with a passion, and Drake finally does slide behind the counter in a way he'd never be allowed to if Helen didn't love him, and grabs Josh's arm.

"Hey," he says, but Josh just throws his rag down tiredly and leans back against the counter.

The intensity of Josh's distaste for Patricia scares Drake more than the sudden, gaping unknown that stretches before him now that he's not Josh's brother, Walter's son.

Josh isn't the hating type. He's the type that saves puppies from trees and thinks people have to get married before they can kiss "and whatnot." He's the moral highground of the two of them, and it freaks Drake out to have their positions switched so suddenly.

"She keeps prancing around the house, Drake. 'Oh, Josh, you'll love L.A.' and 'Oh, Walter, I know the perfect neighbourhood' and giggling. I can't put up with a lot, but the giggling. Do you remember Kelly Hayfer?"

Drake shudders. No one forgets Kelly Hayfer.

"She's worse, Drake. 'Hehehehe, Josh, I'm so glad we could do this together, as a family'."

Drake winces and waits for the emphasis.

"AS A FAMILY."

Drake might talk a big game, but he remembers what it was like before Josh, and Walter. He'd been content with half of a whole, and was sort of, almost always preparing for the day when he would have to be one again. Josh, he was the one who had called them brothers on their first day together in the house, who had hugged him and taken him into the family and told him he thinks it would be cool if Drake called Walter Dad. 

Josh put a lot of importance on the word family, much more than Drake did. Three years ago, Drake didn't care if he had a family as long as he got to play guitar and date girls. Today, Drake kind of sees Josh's point. They're already a family, and fuck this lady if she thinks she's going to be part of it.

"Hey, come on, man." Drake feels weird, being the mature one here, being the nurturing and caring one. He's going to have to give Josh so many noogies to make up for this later.

It's Josh's job to take care of Drake. He's the one who makes Drake Fudgie-Boos when he's sad, and cleans their room when Drake's in one of his moods, and drives him halfway across the county to a gig that could spell a big break for Drake's career.

Drake folds Josh into a hug, a carbon copy of a thousand others, and Josh smiles against his neck. "Drake, there are people here."

Drake shrugs his shoulders against Josh's chest and says, "fuck it."

Josh chuckles warmly in his ear. "The hidden depths of Drake Parker. I'm impressed."

"NICHOLS," Helen screeches, and Josh's face falls again as he almost jumps out of Drake's arms. "No feelings on the job. And clean out the rat traps in the basement."

"Yes, ma'am," Josh groans, and that's another sign to Drake that this whole mess is really fucking with both of them. Josh loves doing anything Helen tells him to, because he takes pride in the stupidest things - a fact that Drake is really grateful for when he sees Josh's smile on stage left when he sings his favorite song and doesn't jack up the bridge - and he doesn't have any of that patented Nichols moxie today.

Drake watches his brother slump towards the basement door and he comes to the realization that he's fucking done with this divorce already and it didn't even happen to him.

*****

Drake is glad that Walter has an irrational fear of heights to go with his irrational allergy to cumin and Josh's spastic tongue. It makes it a hell of a lot easier to scale the small tree outside their apartment building and rap on the second story window where he can see Josh sitting on the couch watching infomercials.

Josh shushes him with a quick motion across his neck, but opens the window all the same. "Drake?" His voice is breathy, like a whisper, but filled with happiness, and Drake scoffs. 

"Get out of the way, I'm freezing out there."

"Well," Josh moves off to the side. "I did give you an in depth presentation on how leather was inferior to downing when it came to insulation and heat retention-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, nerd talk for how leather jackets are actually, scientifically cool." 

Josh stands there stunned for a moment, bare feet placed shoulder-width apart on the carpet and his baggy pajamas pooling over his toes, mouth wagging open. "I... can't even come up with a solid retort to that."

It's a victory, a small one, and it's not because he befuddled his brother. He was trying to worm out a little normalcy again, instead of their hollowed-out way Josh had been staring at the Robotic Ninja Vacuum on TV.

"Drake, it's three am," Josh finally says when Drake pulls his coat off and throws himself down on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table. It looks like something cheap that came with the apartment and Drake's stomach rolls with the realization that Walter and Josh had to leave behind anything that didn't fit in their suitcases.

"I was bored. I felt like tacos." He shrugs and flips the channel. Josh sets down beside him and pulls his pillow across his lap to hug to his chest. "I bought you some." 

"You did?"

"I ate them in the car. Sorry." 

Josh scowls, just like old times, and Drake keeps trying to think of ways to keep this up. If there was anyone a master at getting what they wanted, especially from Josh, it was Drake. He had a thesis or a theorem or a doctorate or something that sounded cool and official in Josh-ology. He knew when pouting would work, and he knew when compliments would work.

Josh was a martyr. He liked to lay down on the sword and let everyone else walk safely over his back. Drake had seen him do it a thousand times, and, in a moment of self-awareness, he remembered the number of times Josh had done just that for him. But when Josh was done sacrificing his happiness for someone else's, he was a force to be reckoned with, and Drake needed Josh to do that now. He needed Josh to stand up for them the way he had stood up to Drake not wanting to hang out together all the time - with that same calculatingly cruelty that had led him to making friends with someone exactly like Drake but not quite him.

"So, Los Angeles." It's the non-sequiter to end all non-sequiters, but Josh frowns just so and Drake sallies on. "City of Angels."

"Yeah," Josh huffs. "What about it?"

"You going?"

The little war being fought between Josh's ears must be epic, but Drake has more pressing matters to attend to and he turns to face Josh on the couch. "So?"

"So? So, what, Drake? I have to go, if my dad goes." 

"Josh, Josh, Josh. Dear, sweet, innocent, baby Josh."

"I am not a baby. I am older than you."

"Yeah, by like, a month, whatever. You waited to take your driver's test until after my birthday."

"Just because I'm the considerate brother doesn't mean that you can - "

Drake pushes his fingers against Josh's mouth because they were getting loud and Drake doesn't feel like he's got enough meddle inside of himself to see Walter's face tonight. He doesn't want to have to hit him and that would probably disappoint Josh because Josh can never get really, properly angry about stuff. He forgives too easily, which Drake supposes is why they were the perfect pair. Josh would convince him to forgive and Drake could teach Josh the meaning of holding a grudge. He's got two father-figures' worth of issues to keep him warm and pissed off at night now, thank you, and he was willing to share those with Josh if it meant keeping him here where he belongs.

"Don't go."

"What?" Josh stutters around Drake's finger. Drake pulls back and wipes the spit off on the tail of Josh's top before holding the finger out in front of him again.

"To Los Angeles. Don't go. Look, we'll be eighteen in a couple of months -"

"Yeah, like, eight!" 

"And you don't have to go." Drake feels oddly exposed, even if the only light on in the room is the flickering glow of the television switching between commercials for other As-Seen-On-TV products while trying to sell you a blender that also does your laundry.

"Drake," Josh starts. It's sad and resigned, and oh, shit, Drake can already feel the logic wafting in the air. "Mom threw us out -"

"Mom threw Walter out," Drake corrects.

"I can't leave him." 

There's something behind his eyes that Drake doesn't like because it looks like a secret, something that Josh hasn't told him before, and that's not how this works. Drake's the one who keeps secrets and fucks things up and who comes clean at the last minutes just in time for Josh to work everything out. 

"Why not? Josh -"

"My mom died, Drake. She didn't leave us. She died."

Drake thinks about that for one second, because he would have absolutely no compunction about sticking by his mom if his dad died, but his dad had been a piece of shit, so she would have been the better for it. 

"And now you are asking me to abandon him too."

"You know what, Josh? He abandoned you, every time he waltzed out the door to be with her. So, really, you aren't abandoning anyone." He swallows hard and swings one leg out the window before he says, "except me."

It takes Josh two weeks before he's standing in Drake's customary parking spot at school when he pulls in (late) and Drake's so angry he slams the door and catches the strap of his backpack in it.

Drake's angry because that's his default response to stress, and because Josh's is to wither up, and because this all could have been avoided if Walter could have just kept it in his pants, and he wouldn't have woken up late because Josh's alarm wasn't there to act as the backup for when he hit the snooze too many times.

Josh just stands there with his arms crossed as Drake swears and kicks and wrestles the strap free before throwing it over his arm and sweeping his sweaty bangs out of his eyes. "Yeah? You got something to say?"

"I'm messing my perfect attendance record to be here."

"I'm honored. Get out of the way, I'm late to Hayfer's class." Drake sits next to Mindy because she's irreverent and crazy and because she reminds him of Josh.

She asks about him sometimes, but Josh got really weird after the affair came out in the open (and they had been willing to hide it for Walter, even, on that first day, if he'd just leave Patricia and keep them together as a family) and broke off with her like he didn't believe in being happy if no one else was.

Drake told her to go fuck herself, once, and she narrowed her eyes at him like she was going to do just that on his bed to spite him. He washed his sheets that night just in case.

Josh is crowding against Drake and not letting him pass, so he steps back and lets Josh pinch the bridge of his nose like he's so much older than seventeen. "Dad took the job."

"La-di-fucking-do, I'm so happy. Enjoy the tan, send your brother a postcard."

Drake tries to push past him again, but Josh hooks his hand around his elbow and pulls him back. Drake shuffles on his feet and watches Josh bite on his thumb. He remembers something Josh had said to him, once, last year, and he parrots it back. "You'll ruin your cuticles."

Josh spits the bitten off piece of nail onto the blacktop and sneers. "Thanks, Drake."

"Just looking out for you, man" and Drake knows it's a lie as soon as he says it. He's looking out for himself, just like he always is, and what's best for him is having Josh as his brother.

Josh doesn't fight him when he stalks past him, and doesn't even turn around when he hears Drake trip over a suspiciously placed suitcase. "Josh?"

"I maybe, sort of told my dad to fuck off?" Drake chokes on the word, because Josh doesn't swear, and it's not like it's a big deal, except that it's just the sign he's been waiting on from him. "Have you sold my bed on eBay yet?"

Drake's still sitting on the sidewalk, so he tries for smooth and says, "of course" and doesn't tell Josh that it's sitting just the way Josh left it - perfectly made with hospital corners and everything.  
"But I'm sure I can convince them to sell it back to me."

"Why? Did you sell it to a woman?"

"Nah, big burly dude. Biker gang. We might have to wear mouthguards when we go pick it up."

Josh smiles like he doesn't believe a word of it, and that if he did, he'd walk right into the viper's nest with Drake if Drake asked him to.

"I do have pretty teeth," Josh nods, extending a hand and picking Drake up. 

"Yeah, you do," Drake agrees, throwing himself at Josh. 

Josh's smile fades, though, as reality sets in, and his fingers tighten in the fabric of Drake's t-shirt. "Mom's not going to like this."

"Yeah, about that." Drake slithered out from under Josh's arms and kicked open the trunk of his car. Inside it was a jumbled mess of loose clothing and his guitar. "I kind of told her I was going to L.A. The band, you know? Better gigs. She threw this stuff out on the lawn. Personally, I think she over-reacted."

Josh honest to God looks like he's going to cry, and Drake can't decide if he's ashamed to call this guy his brother or if he's going to end up bawling right next to him. It was mean, to do that to his mom, and Megan, and he's sure he'll pay for it in every lonely holiday where they don't speak to him, but Josh had done the same thing for him before he'd even known what Drake had done, and that meant more to Drake than he'd care to admit right now.

Josh's face is as happy as Drake ever seen it, and he watches as Josh happily throws his suitcases in the back seat of the car. "How much you got on you?" Josh asks, arranging Drake's clothes around his guitar to protect it from damage and Drake could kiss Josh right now. 

"Four dollars, the cap from a Dr. Fizz bottle, and a melted peppermint. You?"

"Three grand from my Rainy Day bank account and the two-headed penny Grammy gave me for Christmas when I was six years old."

"New York?" Drake says on a whim, and twists his fingers in Josh's zip-up hoodie. Josh's eyes are dark brown and look like they'd actually be warm if you touched them, and he's smirking like he's the one making the decision around here.

"New York. You could start a new band."

"And you could work in a skyscraper. How cool would that be?" Drake ignores the rush of goose pimples that followed Josh's hands as he swept them up and down Drake's arms. "It will be cold in New York. Real winters."

"I'll get you a proper coat," Josh promises, and Drake watches the way Josh's lips shape the words more than he's listening to them. He thinks hard about what they are doing, what they are now - orphans with barely enough money to make it all the way across the country - and he ends up with just one conclusion. 

"Fuck it," he says again, and pulls Josh in. Josh is as warm as Drake's always imagined from the small touches of it he's gotten in the past, and he's just as big of a dork when he's kissing Drake as he is when he's not, but Drake doesn't care. He doesn't care because they are running away from a broken home to be together, and if everyone else is going to be selfish, then so are they.

They send Megan a postcard from Rockefeller Center at Christmas.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't remember if that boss lady's name was Pamela or Patricia so I went with Patricia. Someone let me know if I picked wrong.


End file.
